Ciaran Lavery‘s 2016 album Let Bad In became a breakout moment, winning the Northern Irish Music Prize amid a plethora of plaudits.

Touring widely, Ciaran settled back down in the studio last year, with a lot to develop, a lot to ruminate on.

New album Sweet Decay will be released on April 13th, and it’s a confident, musically very broad return from the songwriter.

New song ’13’ is musically up beat – recalling Springsteen in its plaintive chug – and lyrically it’s one of Ciaran Lavery’s most openly self-critical pieces.

Dissecting his failures, he aims to learn them, refusing to dismiss them in order to become a better person. Ciaran explains…

“This is as honest as I can be as a songwriter without tearing my heart out of my chest and putting it on display. It’s basically about me being a terrible person; the whole thing. I can’t be any more frank about this…”